Sunday, January 31, 2016

Hey all, sorry about not posting last week. I'll try to continue posting consistently, but I'm actually moving BACK to Chicago very soon, so things might get a bit rocky.

Speaking of moving, this week I decided to take the game up to 15 levels. The 15th level is brand new, while levels 12, 13, and 14 are earlier levels with tweaked goals and node-based movement added in.

I'm not sure how many levels I want the game to have in the end, but I'll probably continue to make several new levels in a week, then edit down. That's what I'll likely do for next week.

And again, the charge-up noise is by Javier Zumer, edited by me, used under this license.

Sunday, January 17, 2016

This post comes after a long weekend looking at apartments. I am TIRED! But feeling accomplished. Last week I settled on how I should be handling casting. This week I started making levels which took advantage of that, had some second thoughts immediately. I had an hour-long conversation with my roommate about it, and came away with the resolution to just ride this out.

Both methods produce very similar results, and it isn't difficult to change between the two of them. So I'll just continue to develop the game and see if I run into any problems that make me want to switch. Time will tell if this is a good or bad idea.

On the subject of actually continuing to develop the game, I added a node-based movement script to give objects some simple patrol movement capabilities. I feel it opens up a lot of design space, but we'll have to see just how much in the coming weeks.

As always, the charging-up sound is by Javier Zumer, and is being used under this license. It has been modified by me.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Well I'm back to work on the game after taking a break for the Holidays. This week, I made a decision about which method of warping I wanted to use, fine-tuned that behavior, and implemented a slight tweak to an existing feature at the advice of a friend.

First, I decided that warping with a raycast oriented to the normal of the warp wall hit was the way to go. Last time, I detailed how I could either raycast backwards from the player, backwards from the surface of the wall we're warping through, or backwards from the player using a spherecast. They each had benefits and drawbacks, but if I raycast backwards from the wall I can actually make the player move in more interesting ways. Hopefully I'll have a new level or two by next week to show what I mean.

Warping in this way can cause the player to drift sideways slightly, so I needed to figure out a way to keep the player from moving too erratically in places where they're looping many times through two warp walls. In cases where the difference isn't too large, the warping will actually use a raycast backwards from the player - since that doesn't cause any drift. So I sort of hybridized the warping.

And finally, I used to have warp walls and bounce walls light up as you are charging forward, but a friend of mine pointed out that it makes so much more sense for this to happen when you're building up your charge attack (the double meaning of "charge" has been a headache on this project). Anyway, walls now change color when you're getting ready to charge, not while you're already charging.

And as always, the charge-up (see what I mean?) sound is a sound by Javier Zumer, used and modified by me under this license.